The party wants to ensure their numbers in the state's Legislative Assembly, Legislative Council and the Rajya Sabha does not drop
The Samajwadi Party (SP) is likely to deny a Lok Sabha election ticket to its Members of Legislative Council (MLCs), Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and Rajya Sabha Members of Parliament (MPs).
According to a report by The Indian Express, this is to ensure than the party’s tally does not reduce in any of the Houses. It has just 48 MLAs in the 404-member Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly. In the Upper House, SP has 55 MLCs out of 100.
It has 13 MPs in the Rajya Sabha.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Akhilesh Yadav-led party is contesting the election in alliance with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
SP and BSP will be contesting 37 and 38 seats out of Uttar Pradesh’s total 80 seats, respectively. The RLD has been allotted three seats while two seats -- Amethi and Rae Bareli –- have been left for the Congress.
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An SP leader told the newspaper: “Over two dozen sitting MLAs had expressed a wish to contest elections earlier. But many of them lost hope after the seats they were eyeing went to BSP as part of seat-sharing within the alliance… Still, over a dozen MLAs are aspiring for tickets.”
The report added that the party was considering Ram Gopal Yadav -- currently a Rajya Sabha MP -- from the Sambhal constituency. However, this idea was rejected.
Kairana MLA Nahid Hasan, Chamrauna MLA Naseer Ahmad Khan and Malhani MLA Parasnath Yadav are ticket aspirants for Kairana, Rampur and Jaunpur LS seats, respectively. They had contested the 2014 general election from these seats in 2014 and had lost to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In 2014, the BJP and its ally managed to stun the SP by winning 73 out of UP’s 80 seats. SP won just five Lok Sabha seats – Badaun (Dharmendra Yadav), Firozabad (Akshay Yadav), Kannauj (Dimple Yadav), and Azamgarh and Mainpuri (party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav).
Reports had earlier suggested that Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav will contest the upcoming national polls from Kannauj and Mainpuri, respectively.
